Home » FULL CONTROL GAMES » #JAFDEV » Community Wishlist for JA:F
| Re: Community Wishlist for JA:F[message #325345]
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Wed, 18 September 2013 12:35  
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 derek |
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Messages:143
Registered:April 2010 |
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Yeah I know all that about chars and soul of JA2... that B movie style, mercs like they came from Expendables and shit. And yes, it's great. But that is only one side of the coin.
Three best ever PC games 4 me:
JA2 (no need to say anything  )
FALLOUT 1 & 2 (really! what a world, concept, dialogs, varieties of all sorts...)
SWKotOR 1 & 2 (definitely the only game, as least that I met, where U can come to new location and talk for hours with anybody about everything... sit down, relax, enjoy the view, and talk about everything... and U GOT 2 LOVE HK-47, the best gaming char ever. Plus I just love SW world).
But JA2 has something, something that "ruined" all turn-based strategy/tactical games for me... the complexity of combat and combat mechanics. No game is good enough!
And those stuff I wrote in previous posts.
@ Depri
Thanks, didn't know that... 'cause "but a fail can never push them over to the next level" that was obvious (for me).
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Sergeant
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| Re: Community Wishlist for JA:F[message #325351]
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Wed, 18 September 2013 14:48
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| derek |
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Messages:143
Registered:April 2010 |
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HyraxI
I'd rather approach from the problem side rather than let's do some cool stuff. Point out a problem and try to balance it.
For example:
For me in JA2 vanilla there were firefights that were too short or did not have enough bullets flying compared to JA. In JA it was possible to flank the enemy or change positions to improve the firefight and every shot did not hit.
Never had that "problem" in vanilla. Just the other day started it with only Reaper, went all the way to Drassen. Although enemies miss all that "tactical cover usage" that exists in 1.13 AI is actually better - most of the time they go prone (although out at the open - and always disliked that); and they were constantly shooting at me and U could clearly see that they don't mind "effective range" and accuracy, that they rather fired a few shots with low accuracy just to try to "suppress" me and hoping that at least one bullet will hit me (much better ten AI that we have now, except cover - hate that out at the open shit).
Don't know... my suggestion is to make AI in that way that they mostly seek cover but in that way that they save few APs, just enough for make a small burst with which they try to suppress mercs.
And I would lower APs (or increase AP cost for actions). So the combat would seem more "real time" (simultaneously), and U would think wisely what to do. And if U find yourself too open you'll either run for cover or make burst fire (on few carefully planed single shots) hopping for suppression effect and that U'll hit somebody (same will go for AI).
Temporary working on that in my 1.13, will see how it goes.
And definitely make enemies "overcome" that "effective range" stat, so that they don't care too much about that but more on cover and suppression and hitting the target "to save his head" (so to speak). (they do that in vanilla - sorta)
And Wildfire terrain, with all that grass and all, is good way of making combat complicated.
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Sergeant
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| Re: Community Wishlist for JA:F[message #325489]
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Sat, 21 September 2013 04:55
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| Akodo Deathseeker |
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Messages:104
Registered:March 2001
Location: St Paul, MN |
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Mauser
Body armor is different though, because once damaged and penetrated, most body armor becomes useless or at least significantly less protective. And all body armors deteoriate over time, depending on usage and climate. And the fewest of them can actually be mended and fixed up again, but always have to be discarded and replaced.
A punctured steel plate insert cannot be reforged, a shattered ceramic plate cannot be glued back together, a penetrated Kevlar fabric cannot really be stitched back together and regain its full strength.
Every time body armor gets hit, it should deteriorate. That deterioration should be permanent.
The question is, should armor value drop a little each time the armor deteriorates, or should it drop in stages, or should it give full protection until it finally hits junk status where it gives none.
I personally think dropping it's effectiveness in stages rather than in direct correlation to deterioration is best.
One thing that must also be kept in consideration when doing armor is how the system lines up with the health system. Just like armor doesn't really get to be shot at and be just fine after 'repair time' so to you can't get shot and then be fully fine in a few days after medical care.
If armor deteriorates too fast and too easily compared to health you can develop a system where it's better for the merc to leave his best armor off except for really hard fights because health is easier to recover than armor. That is wrong. In other games I've played health has been so easy to recover that ammo is more important. I'll risk exposing myself to sniper fire to determine where the sniper is, because getting shot 3-4 times is a less of a loss than 1 grenade is, which is wrong.
Quote:I rather see this as a dual-value system.
You have one status value for general cleanliness and maintennance, which deteriorates with different speeds depending on gun type, climate and usage.
This one can always be raised from 0% to 100% by simple maintennance and repairs.
The second value represents a permanent wear&tear status, which cannot be fixed by normal means and drops permanently alongside the first value through usage and received damage. And it drops the faster, the lower the first value gets, raising the risk for catastrophical failure alongside. It could also be enhanced by additional status marks, ranging from broken to perfect, according to a certain % treshold. Once its status drops below that treshold, it permanently changes status and according denomination. Expert repairs may be able to improve the overall status to the upper maximum value for the current treshold, but not above, except maybe by using spare parts to replace key components. Maybe even a Fallout New Vegas like repair system would be thinkable, where you can scavenge parts from items of the same type to repair one more effectively?
I can see a dual system. Obviously no amount of cleaning is going to off-set an item being caught in a grenade blast. I think you could do a dual system with an excellent-good-fair-poor-junk system is applied to EVERYTHING.
I think two different bars on every item (like health and mana!) may be too much.
For consumables, a bar showing how much is left in the canteen or first aid kit is good. For guns I'd have a bar to show how in need of maintenance the item is.
For most other things I'd tag the Excellent-good-fair-poor-junk to show when an item's effectiveness is lowered (and signal that it is time to repair it, if it is an item that can be repaired)
Quote:The key to this system is: the better you take care of your equipment, the slower it will deteoriate through usage.
You may be able to fix a broken or heavily worn gun up well enough to function again, but you will never be able to make it work as good as new. Wear and tear should have a permanent component with limited repairability, in order to make ruggedness, reliability and quality a much more important tactical factor for equipment choice.
Prime example: M-16 vs. AK47. A well maintanied and pristine M-16 may be more ergonomic and accurate than the AK, but the AK will take a lot more punishment and neglect, almost never fail and be much less affected by the environment, whilst the M-16 will greatly suffer from less than optimal conditions and be generally much more maintenance-heavy to field.
We are talking of a scenario and timeframe, where the most available guns will be Vietnam-era stuff and older, with only very few significantly more modern models and higher quality components.
Also, this permanent wear system will force the player to change equipment more frequently, instead of allowing him to acquire it once and use it for the rest of the game, as long as he only has the repair ability. Thus also allowing for another factor to balance out the ingame economy and item progression
Both values influence reliability and accuracy. Because even a relatively well maintained but worn out gun will always be less reliable and accurate than a brand new one, but a badly maintained new gun may become just as unreliable and inaccurate than a well maintained worn gun, until it is properly taken care of.
I am still skeptical of this.
I don't agree with some fundamental underlying assumptions.
Items wear out, agreed.
ALL items can go from being in good functional order to bad functional order through direct damage such as being caught in a grenade blast.
Some items are going to degrade through normal usage, such things as batteries wearing out, or boots coming apart.
However, a lot of gear is designed so that with proper maintenance it will last forever. In wars it doesn't go to junk status because it gets used to much but because there isn't the time or opportunity to give it proper maintenance.
For example, binoculars. They aren't going to drop in quality because you look through them all the time, they are going to drop in quality because they are being carried around in the wet jungle. Ye, in some small way every time your hand grasps them to put them up to your eyes tiny amounts of finish and metal flake off, but this is so small as to be inconsequential. A wood chopping axe gets dull and needs to be sharpened. Yes, sharpening removes a tiny bit of metal from the axe blade and eventually can be sharpened to nothing, but in reality lumberjacks who use an axe every day for long hours would go YEARS before totally wearing out the head.
Firearms are the same. Yes, in theory, the barrel gets a little wear with every shot. However it's like the axe head wearing away, the amount of usage to cause enough wear that it would have an impact on combat performance would be astronomical.
Some items should be the exact opposite of consumables, with proper maintenance (and as long as they don't get directly damaged by being caught in a grenade blast or being accidentally dropped out of a helicopter) they will last effectively forever. Binoculars, axe blades, guns, radios (but not their batteries) and similar items would fall in this category.
[Updated on: Sat, 21 September 2013 05:01] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Sergeant
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| Re: Community Wishlist for JA:F[message #325490]
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Sat, 21 September 2013 05:35
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| Akodo Deathseeker |
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Messages:104
Registered:March 2001
Location: St Paul, MN |
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ShangaThere's a shitload of games out there that are a more realistic shoot'em up simulator than JA2. What made JA2 great is the fact that it blended the RPG flavours the team had from previous work (Wizardry) with a military combat sim.
This is where a sequel to JA2 fails or makes good. It's the fine line between casual players who take the game for a isometric pew pew and those who know the game by heart from thousands of hours of gameplay.
In short, a JA game needs to be an adventure story about some very particular (read "weird") characters that go and blow shit up in style. It's where BIA failed to deliver. I can't tell you of a single battle where one of my mercs did or said something worth remembering. On the opposite - I'll never forget the day I stumbled upon the Hicks and Ira got married in vanilla JA2. Or the first boxing match in San Mona. Or the day Mike showed up in Balime and the squad's reaction.
Yes, it's about guns. Yes, it's about cover mechanics and CTH. But if the squad is just a collection of plastic soldiers, you failed to make Jagged Alliance.
There is a flip side to that. There are a lot of games that have a great storyline or RPG element. If all you have is a great story with colorful characters, you don't have JA.
By it's very nature, JA is only JA because it is very strong in BOTH sides, and they support each-other.
As far as story elements, that's a bit harder for a community to get involved in.
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Sergeant
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| Re: Community Wishlist for JA:F[message #325491]
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Sat, 21 September 2013 06:26
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| Akodo Deathseeker |
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Messages:104
Registered:March 2001
Location: St Paul, MN |
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I see a lot of discussions on Range Stats for weapons, and discussing Max range, Effective range, etc. Here's my take on it, and it will eventually get back to JA.
Range
You see terms like maximum range and effective range on a lot of guns.
This is all basically meaningless because of all the variables that go into what determines it and what everyone means by it, which is constantly changing.
Maximum True Range for all guns is so big as to have no relevance to anything except for the idea of 'don't shoot guns in the air'. The lowly 22LR bullet can fly 1.5 miles. A more potent rifle can easily sling it's bullet 2 miles.
So what is 'effective range?' and what about things like how much energy the bullet looses traveling that far?
Well, a 30-06 bullet has basically the same energy at 1000 yards as most SMGs are delivering at the muzzle. Still, I'd not peg a 30-06 rifle with a 1000 yard 'effective range'
There's also the concept of mechanical accuracy. Basically this is 'hand a rifle to a robot who can shoot repeatedly with zero variability, so any changes on where the bullet hits are going to be 100% gun' This is generally measured in what is called Minute of Angle (MOA) which allows distance to be ignored. Basically, 1 minute of angle is roughly 1 inch at 100 yards, 2 inches at 200 yards, 6 inches at 600 etc. What is expressed by a gun that has MOA of X, is that 3 shots fired would fall into a circle whose diameter is equal to the MOA value. So a 1 MOA gun is expected to put all 3 shots in a 1 inch diameter circle at 100 yards and a 6 inch diameter circle at 600 yards.
Most guns have a mechanical accuracy of 2 or 3 MOA. Even with very crappy 5 MOA accuracy that still means shots are going to be hitting in a 15 inch diameter circle at 300 yards.
Few people can shoot better than a 'crappy' 5 MOA target. The 'kill' circle on the targets the US military uses for it's marksmanship test is 16 cm (6 inches) at 100 yards and 48CM (19 inches) on it's 300 yard target. It's generally these targets at 100 yards and beyond that give soldiers trouble. Roughly 20% of soldiers score "Expert" which is hitting 90% of the targets.
Raw mechanical accuracy really isn't much of a hinderance either.
However, the ability of a human to tap that mechanical accuracy and harness that giant range is a challenge.
Take a look at this, the sight from a 1903 springfield rifle
Part Name Range Used
a Top "U" Notch 2850 yards
b "U" Notch 1400 to 2750 yards
c Battle Sight Notch 400 to 530 yards
d Bottom Sight Notch 100 to 2450 yards
e Peep Sight 100 to 2350 yards
f Windage Scale Eleven per side (each marking equals 4 minute of angle at 100 yards)
Can the human eye even SEE a person standing at 2850 yards?
In almost all cases of 'how far away can this gun shoot effectively' it is the human who is the weak link.
Now, there are some features that can either help or hinder a human. Being able to aim is one of them. Take that 1903 springfield rifle above and cut off the rear and front sight. The mechanical accuracy is unchanged, the maximum range is unchanged, the power of the round as it flies down-range is unchanged, but the ability of the human to hit things with that gun are now drastically changed.
Having sights were the front and rear are far apart is a big help, having well designed sights that are crisp, sharp, and easy to use is a big help. Having a fixed solid shoulder stock allows the shooter to hold the gun more steadily, a flimsy folding stock is much better than no stock, a crisp trigger break helps, a trigger that takes lot of effort to pull will hurt the shooter's chance to hit, etc, etc.
RANGE should be a quick shorthand of at what range a reasonably skilled shooter should stand a pretty good chance of hitting a target.
For JA2 this should be a number you see somewhere on the gun's stat page.
Closer is always better, but this is relative. A handgun may have a RANGE value of 25 yards. A target at 20 yards is going to be easier to shoot with that handgun...but a target at 50 yards being shot at with a rifle that has a range of 100 yards is easier still.
Because of how far the bullet can go there should never be a point where the game says 'you cannot shoot'. Also, being slightly beyond what the listed range is shouldn't give a HUGE drop in likelihood of hitting, but it should give some...and as you step further and further away, that penalty should really begin to stack up.
[Updated on: Thu, 30 January 2014 16:26] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Sergeant
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| Re: Community Wishlist for JA:F[message #325504]
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Sat, 21 September 2013 14:43
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| Hyrax |
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Messages:17
Registered:May 2013
Location: Harjumaa |
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Well in ideal I would prefer a two way system. If the enemy is certain squares away you can aim at the legs, body, head and unarmored part of the body. If the target is further away then it becomes a target you shoot at, but because you can't see to aim at the body it will be just targeting the enemy. If you have a sight on which allows longer viewing distance, your sight is increased and you can make aimed shots further away. This would allow to target enemies in the smoke without aimed shots and also may add the part where you see a person, but it is too far away to determine if it is friend or foe (could be complicated to implement).
I agree with Akodo, guns should have effective range, but rather make it less marginal - meaning the power will decrease and the chance to hit decreases.
About the body armor I agree that is should be permanently damaged. I would also like to add that I would like to see much fewer number or body armor than in JA2. Something maybe by enemy levels:
recruit: no armor. local militia - no armor and later on flak jacket and helmet. Soldier - basic armor, later on kevlar. Elite soldier - full armor. I would see that you would face local militia the most and soldiers.
And I also agree that 2 levels of item status is over the top.
But all this discussion in this forum mode seems kind of chaotic, I would propose that JA:F would install in their webpage a similar system to GOG - the community wishlist. Short description of the idea or functionality, people get to vote for it or vote not important. And also comment next to the vote if they want to add why feel this way.
Right now it seems that largely people agree on things (realism is good, but let's not over do it or under do it), but the little details get too much attention where they shouldn't and that is where there are a lot of opinions.
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| Re: Community Wishlist for JA:F[message #332824]
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Mon, 19 May 2014 12:41
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| Shanga |
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Messages:3479
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia |
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There is really no reason to spend dev time on making 2000 weapons for JA:F. Consider stock JA2 and how many weapons that had. Plus JA:F global map, having too many weapons would make it hard to sync progress and loot tables.
On the other hand they're busy externalizing hard coded stuff. To quote Lund:
Quote:OK - just spend an hour to remove and rework the hardcoded UnitID. Will try to do the same for Items and Weapons. That enables you to do additions and not only changes. Part of next update
Posted 2 days ago. In SEA version they added a few new weapons already (in alpha all we had as M16). Here's the full JSON file:
{
"Items": {
"defaultActionClass": "JAFWeapon",
"ItemObjects": [
{
"Id": "M16",
"Name": "EM16",
"Icon": "M16.png",
"Type": "Weapon",
"EquipmentClass": "Hands",
"SlotsCount": 1,
"Weight": 10,
"AP": 10,
"BurstFire" : 1,
"AutoFire" : 1,
"EffectiveRange": 5,
"MuzzleVelocity": 5,
"BaseAccuracy": 90,
"Mobility": 25,
"Damage": 60,
"DamageFalloff" : 15
},
{
"Id": "AK47",
"Name": "JK-47",
"Icon": "AK47.png",
"Type": "Weapon",
"EquipmentClass": "Hands",
"SlotsCount": 1,
"Weight": 10,
"AP": 10,
"BurstFire" : 1,
"AutoFire" : 1,
"EffectiveRange": 5,
"MuzzleVelocity": 15,
"BaseAccuracy": 80,
"Mobility": 25,
"Damage": 75,
"DamageFalloff" : 5
},
{
"Id": "SUG",
"Name": "Strey AUG",
"Icon": "SteyrAug.png",
"Type": "Weapon",
"EquipmentClass": "Hands",
"SlotsCount": 1,
"Weight": 10,
"AP": 10,
"BurstFire" : 1,
"AutoFire" : 1,
"EffectiveRange": 7,
"MuzzleVelocity": 10,
"BaseAccuracy": 92,
"Mobility": 25,
"Damage": 65,
"DamageFalloff" : 10
},
{
"Id": "SVD",
"Name": "ZVD Bragonuv",
"Icon": "SVD.png",
"Type": "Weapon",
"EquipmentClass": "Hands",
"SlotsCount": 1,
"Weight": 10,
"AP": 14,
"EffectiveRange": 10,
"MuzzleVelocity": 20,
"BaseAccuracy": 98,
"Mobility": 4,
"Damage": 80,
"DamageFalloff" : 15
},
{
"Id": "SKS",
"Name": "SCS",
"Icon": "SKS.png",
"Type": "Weapon",
"EquipmentClass": "Hands",
"SlotsCount": 1,
"Weight": 10,
"AP": 10,
"EffectiveRange": 10,
"MuzzleVelocity": 8,
"BaseAccuracy": 90,
"Mobility": 5,
"Damage": 78,
"DamageFalloff" : 5
},
{
"Id": "M1_Garand",
"Name": "N1 Dagrand",
"Icon": "Garand.png",
"Type": "Weapon",
"EquipmentClass": "Hands",
"SlotsCount": 1,
"Weight": 10,
"AP": 10,
"EffectiveRange": 20,
"MuzzleVelocity": 8,
"BaseAccuracy": 100,
"Mobility": 5,
"Damage": 70,
"DamageFalloff" : 25
},
]
}
}
[Updated on: Mon, 19 May 2014 12:43] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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ROFL 
) would be really, really, nice. More, tougher enemies. Loooonger weapon ranges ranges, more emphasis on cover. 100 APs and the ability to zoom out more. You know, the 1.13 treatment.
